An emotional friend of mine quotes clichés like this one..
“You can't love somebody and not trust them. “
Cute one indeed! But a more deeper question is...Why are we scared of trusting people? Why do we insulate ourselves from the rest of the world? Why do we suspect? Is it even ok to suspect? Isn't trust supposed to be earned?
I believe in starting with basic assumption that every person is good at heart. Respect him/her the way you would respect a trustworthy person or a friend. But don’t be blind! Don’t be an emotional fool!
It is not so easy to practice this kind of attitude. Occasionally we will encounter situations that will make us skeptical of people. As we grow up, we start losing faith in "goodness" of people. How and where do we lose innocence? Even the most logical and rational people are susceptible to "cognitive dissonance". If we strongly hold the view that "people are good at heart" and at the same time encounter people who really break our heart, we think, and most of the times think in favor of our heart, trying to minimize the pain and end up changing our views so that they are in resonance with our experiences. And what do these experiences tell us? If you read them right...they just tell us that don't be blind, don't be an emotional fool. Few bad experiences should not cost us our innocence. Be willing to tolerate such circumstances, but don't let anybody rob you of your most precious possession, the innocence.
And as all this happens in our subconscious mind, we rationalize it somehow, by hook or crook, without even realizing what we are doing. If you were to realize that you catching up with this negative trait would you not step back? Unfortunately most of us don't even realize this. This is when the habbit of introspecting, a careful examination of one's own thoughts and feelings proves to be useful.
After editing this post three times...atleast! I realized that I am getting rigid too. It is hard to admit that I do swing between the two extremes I am talking about here. Most of us do. We are skeptics sometimes and sometimes we are emotional fools too. It is amazing how this blog has changed from a simple blog to personal confession.
So, the gist is keep faith…faith that every person is good at heart. Let us not give up our innocence ever. Let us make a lifelong pledge to be child at heart and love every person as one's own self. But let's not be emotional fools!
Luv ya all!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Mind body connection
Running around in town with 102 fever with no care whatsoever for my body, to being forced down to do NLP with special mind-body relation section introduced for a person with special needs :D taught me nothing really.
After 5 years I did it again!
3-4 months ago I had a muscle injury because of careless lifting of heavy container that I did in my lab ;) well I am not built for that kind of stuff. But what kind of stuff are we talking about anyways?? 10kgs. 20kgs. Who knows! Little did I care then and ended up having tennis elbow. On showing it to doc in India who looked at me for a while and asked.. "What kind of lifestyle is yours?” I said ok kind of...active...occasionally not active at all. And after observing me a little more and asking about my work and all.. he declared that this isn’t the kind of thing which would happen normally. People tend to rest when something goes wrong. Hell no..don’t give me that look! I am normal. Perfectly normal. I hope saying it twice would compel you to believe me. Btw, my elbow still hurts. Any solutions/suggestions? No more ignoring my body henceforth.
No wonder I still don't get it. Mind body connection! I believe it, oh sure!! deeply! but still I don't feel it.
After 5 years I did it again!
3-4 months ago I had a muscle injury because of careless lifting of heavy container that I did in my lab ;) well I am not built for that kind of stuff. But what kind of stuff are we talking about anyways?? 10kgs. 20kgs. Who knows! Little did I care then and ended up having tennis elbow. On showing it to doc in India who looked at me for a while and asked.. "What kind of lifestyle is yours?” I said ok kind of...active...occasionally not active at all. And after observing me a little more and asking about my work and all.. he declared that this isn’t the kind of thing which would happen normally. People tend to rest when something goes wrong. Hell no..don’t give me that look! I am normal. Perfectly normal. I hope saying it twice would compel you to believe me. Btw, my elbow still hurts. Any solutions/suggestions? No more ignoring my body henceforth.
No wonder I still don't get it. Mind body connection! I believe it, oh sure!! deeply! but still I don't feel it.
Revolution within...
Read a blog of my friend who periodically vents out his anger through his blogs. He usually writes about corrupt politicians, corrupt bureaucrats and all those people who do nothing about it, which means, all of us including he himself ;)
Everybody knows that the change begins with self and so if you and I and many others change we can certainly change the world right?! Bloody hell No! (Oops I am getting that language after reading his blogs!)
Politics ain’t no easy, man. Agreed! But look at the guts of those few people...those all fools with no job and no brains rush to run the local govt. bodies. It is not their fault! How can you blame them? I don’t want to sound as if I have been there, seen all types…but sure I saw it all a little too close.
Give me the ratio of number of politicians to population of our country. Let us say there are about 10,000 politicians and our population is about 1,140,000,000. Who is ruling the country here? Where are these politicians coming from? Not sky ofcourse!
This friend of mine talks a lot on philosophy. Philosophers can be good politicians...but no matter what u say here, if you are that one timid person who can write theories at the most but get nothing done in practical life, nothing can be ever achieved. There are hundreds and thousands of crooked ways to justify yourself if you are a philosopher or a politician :P but unfortunately...unless u have guts to experiment with your so called theories nothing can ever change.
"Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."-G.B.Shaw
Everybody knows that the change begins with self and so if you and I and many others change we can certainly change the world right?! Bloody hell No! (Oops I am getting that language after reading his blogs!)
Politics ain’t no easy, man. Agreed! But look at the guts of those few people...those all fools with no job and no brains rush to run the local govt. bodies. It is not their fault! How can you blame them? I don’t want to sound as if I have been there, seen all types…but sure I saw it all a little too close.
Give me the ratio of number of politicians to population of our country. Let us say there are about 10,000 politicians and our population is about 1,140,000,000. Who is ruling the country here? Where are these politicians coming from? Not sky ofcourse!
This friend of mine talks a lot on philosophy. Philosophers can be good politicians...but no matter what u say here, if you are that one timid person who can write theories at the most but get nothing done in practical life, nothing can be ever achieved. There are hundreds and thousands of crooked ways to justify yourself if you are a philosopher or a politician :P but unfortunately...unless u have guts to experiment with your so called theories nothing can ever change.
"Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."-G.B.Shaw
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Losing control
What I am trying to lose control of?
It was hard for me to make my friend understand why I changed my mind after just one drink? It was not so much of an experience as it was a reflection on what you want to gain through drinking. Have you ever done something crazy, something that really is out of line behavior for you? Like say….Enter a class full of 30 students and shout something really crazy to get their attention! Oops sorry I guess I do that very often now. Although, it took me some time to do that without any thought of a back reaction. Say enter an unknown party and do something really stupid like dancing alone on the floor. That "letting yourself go", and hence losing the control is different from losing your brain’s judging capability. What do you say? This may seem a little self contradictory to most, as doing something out of line usually involves breaking so many complexes a person has. And it requires discipline to change oneself, right? hell no! not always.
I remember, as master’s student we were ragged in girl’s hostel. Not serious kind of ragging at all! They asked me to dance. I was fear struck I could hardly move my feet, damn! I did something really funny and ended up being more embarrassed than ever. Not that I don’t like dancing, but it just didn’t occur to me that, I can. I tried learning and now I am pretty good at it, but still I cannot put my step down and say - let us dance girls! I know you will say get drunk, dance and once you have done that you will not feel this kind of block in your mind anymore. Well what you consider success, if it doesn’t come out of your sound mind, does it really make any sense? To be totally awake and then experiencing the magic of change is so consuming than anything else that you can ever imagine.
It was hard for me to make my friend understand why I changed my mind after just one drink? It was not so much of an experience as it was a reflection on what you want to gain through drinking. Have you ever done something crazy, something that really is out of line behavior for you? Like say….Enter a class full of 30 students and shout something really crazy to get their attention! Oops sorry I guess I do that very often now. Although, it took me some time to do that without any thought of a back reaction. Say enter an unknown party and do something really stupid like dancing alone on the floor. That "letting yourself go", and hence losing the control is different from losing your brain’s judging capability. What do you say? This may seem a little self contradictory to most, as doing something out of line usually involves breaking so many complexes a person has. And it requires discipline to change oneself, right? hell no! not always.
I remember, as master’s student we were ragged in girl’s hostel. Not serious kind of ragging at all! They asked me to dance. I was fear struck I could hardly move my feet, damn! I did something really funny and ended up being more embarrassed than ever. Not that I don’t like dancing, but it just didn’t occur to me that, I can. I tried learning and now I am pretty good at it, but still I cannot put my step down and say - let us dance girls! I know you will say get drunk, dance and once you have done that you will not feel this kind of block in your mind anymore. Well what you consider success, if it doesn’t come out of your sound mind, does it really make any sense? To be totally awake and then experiencing the magic of change is so consuming than anything else that you can ever imagine.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Why people drink?
Why do people drink? Oh ho! Let me point the finger towards me and ask why did I drink? I had my first and probably the last drink on 21 st Aug 08, on my friend's successful Ph.D. defence! Wow need to keep track of "dare" things that I do in my life right!...assuming that it matters somehow!
I had one drink, my best friend had two. We wanted to know how it feels getting drunk? What happened after that? How did it really feel? Someone wanted to know this and I couldn't tell right away what it was like. Not that I hadn't given it a thought, but because I knew his reaction. It takes time for me to digest my own conclusions sometimes!!
To be true, I found no pleasure in losing balance. I felt dizzy for 10 mins at the most, my friend felt dizzy for may be a little longer. Well aise hi kaha hosh mein rehte hai ke pi ke hosh gawaye! But I really think one ought to try it once atleast! You should know why you don't drink. Let us assume you get baited into having it by some weird crazy circumstance, what will you do then? Get addicted to it?
Find the reason why you don't want to drink! For me it was simple - "I find no pleasure in losing control over my body!" Call that a typical desi girl attitude or whatever! Infact, nobody will ever call that a "typical desi" attitude taking into consideration of how many desi girls around me have it on regular basis without any inhibitions.
Hurray! Ek baar hi sahi I could shout for fun "Talli ho ke girne se seekhi humne gravity!" By that rule, one can learn gravity only if one gets drunk! Beware of those who are good physicists, they must be quite drunkards too! I am a bad one for sure...now what follows what is upto you to decide. ;)
I had one drink, my best friend had two. We wanted to know how it feels getting drunk? What happened after that? How did it really feel? Someone wanted to know this and I couldn't tell right away what it was like. Not that I hadn't given it a thought, but because I knew his reaction. It takes time for me to digest my own conclusions sometimes!!
To be true, I found no pleasure in losing balance. I felt dizzy for 10 mins at the most, my friend felt dizzy for may be a little longer. Well aise hi kaha hosh mein rehte hai ke pi ke hosh gawaye! But I really think one ought to try it once atleast! You should know why you don't drink. Let us assume you get baited into having it by some weird crazy circumstance, what will you do then? Get addicted to it?
Find the reason why you don't want to drink! For me it was simple - "I find no pleasure in losing control over my body!" Call that a typical desi girl attitude or whatever! Infact, nobody will ever call that a "typical desi" attitude taking into consideration of how many desi girls around me have it on regular basis without any inhibitions.
Hurray! Ek baar hi sahi I could shout for fun "Talli ho ke girne se seekhi humne gravity!" By that rule, one can learn gravity only if one gets drunk! Beware of those who are good physicists, they must be quite drunkards too! I am a bad one for sure...now what follows what is upto you to decide. ;)
Monday, May 21, 2007
To be nice or to be right
It is amazing how some people can be nice to everyone 24x7. They are never angry, atleast they don't seem to be angry;)! They will help anyone and everyone never mind how are they treated. It is amazing how someone can achieve that state....so amazing that at times it seems unworldly!
Why can't I be like them? Why can't everybody be like them?
The human element as we call it is made up of all the states of mind and its interaction with the environment(other humans). Every state of mind is reflected in how we interact with others. It is natural to be angry, it is natural to be sad, it is natural to be happy...all these things make you human being. What would a person be without any emotions...a machine?
To be nice no matter what is different from to be doing the right thing. Sometimes doing right thing is to get angry and let yourself express it. Why is that a sin? It is more humane I would say! Not expressing something in the form of anger doesn't mean one does not feel bad. And if one does feel bad why not express it?!
Learning how not to hit the extremes is always important! Balancing doesn't mean being goody good 24x7 it means understanding the situations and circumstances before reacting to it and reacting in the right way.
E.g.: If you kick me, I will ask, "hey why did you kick me?". And if you answer, "it wasn't your intention, you just happened to...blah blah blah..." . I will believe you. But if I sit there not reacting like a dead person instead of questioning you I must be either touch insensitive or must have entered the zone where nothing penetrates my thick skin, whether good or bad. (There is no good or bad anyways, but that is a different story entirely.)
Watch this from the movie.."Raising Helen":
watch the part where she gets angry and says.."Btw, You are not a bad person, but this is a very bad behavior" Not that this is the only way to handle the situation but I really like the way she pulls herself back and redefines her anger!
Why can't I be like them? Why can't everybody be like them?
The human element as we call it is made up of all the states of mind and its interaction with the environment(other humans). Every state of mind is reflected in how we interact with others. It is natural to be angry, it is natural to be sad, it is natural to be happy...all these things make you human being. What would a person be without any emotions...a machine?
To be nice no matter what is different from to be doing the right thing. Sometimes doing right thing is to get angry and let yourself express it. Why is that a sin? It is more humane I would say! Not expressing something in the form of anger doesn't mean one does not feel bad. And if one does feel bad why not express it?!
Learning how not to hit the extremes is always important! Balancing doesn't mean being goody good 24x7 it means understanding the situations and circumstances before reacting to it and reacting in the right way.
E.g.: If you kick me, I will ask, "hey why did you kick me?". And if you answer, "it wasn't your intention, you just happened to...blah blah blah..." . I will believe you. But if I sit there not reacting like a dead person instead of questioning you I must be either touch insensitive or must have entered the zone where nothing penetrates my thick skin, whether good or bad. (There is no good or bad anyways, but that is a different story entirely.)
Watch this from the movie.."Raising Helen":
watch the part where she gets angry and says.."Btw, You are not a bad person, but this is a very bad behavior" Not that this is the only way to handle the situation but I really like the way she pulls herself back and redefines her anger!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)